2007/2008 Season Opera
[New Production]

Bernd Alois Zimmermann :DIE SOLDATEN

OPERA HOUSE

Wesener	:	Shikano Yoshiyuki
Marie	:	Victoria Loukianetz
Charlotte	:	Yamashita Makiko
Weseners alte Mutter	:	Teratani Chieko
Stolzius	:	Claudio Otelli
Stolzius’ Mutter	:	Muramatsu Keiko
Obrist, Graf von Spannheim	:	Saiki Kenji
Desportes	:	Peter Hoare
Pirzel, ein Hauptmann	:	Koyama Yojiro
Eisenhardt, ein Feldprediger	:	Izumi Ryohei
Haudy, ein Hauptmann	:	Kobayashi Yoshiki
Mary, ein Hauptmann	:	Kuroda Hiroshi
Die Gräfin de la Roche	:	Moriyama Kyoko
Der junge Graf, ihr Sohn	:	Takahashi Jun
Chorus	:	New National Theatre Chorus
Orchestra	:	Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra

May 2008	5	7	10
	Mon	Wed	Sat
2:00	X		X
7:00		X

Doors will open 45 minutes before the opening of the performance.

	S	A	B	C	D	Z
Price(yen)	23,100	18,900	12,600	7,350	4,200	1,500

A masterpiece of twentieth century opera, famous both for its importance in terms of the idea of opera as “a total work of art” and for how notoriously difficult it is to stage. The composer was interested in “giving expression to time and space,” and onstage three different narratives unfold simultaneously, depicting the fall of Marie, a shopkeeper’s daughter into penniless misery, with a collagelike mixture of chorale, jazz, opera, noise, electronics, and folk music. Conductor Wakasugi Hiroshi led the premiere performance of this work in Japan as a vocal symphony in 1999.

Lille, in northern France. Marie, daughter of the shopkeeper Wesener, is engaged to be married to Stolzius, but also becomes involved with the young French aristocrat and soldier Desportes. Her parents rebuke her for her frivolity, but are also beginning to dream of a more socially advantageous marriage for their daughter when Baron Desportes suddenly disappears. Marie goes on to a series of assignations with a colonel, and then with a young count, and after a brief attempt to mend her ways, falls into prostitution. Stolzius, his lover stolen from him, poisons Desportes, then himself. A formation of soldiers marches down the avenue, and Maria, now a beggar, collapses in tears.